April 1/01 12:08 pm - Green on the Road, CCA, Harnett, Forums

Posted by Editor on 04/1/01

Green Goes to Postal

Roland Green has accepted an offer from U.S. Postal and will exchange his knobby tires for the road. Two weeks ago, halfway through the Redlands Classic - which he was dominating for the Postal team - Green was offered a full time ride with Lance Armstrong's team, but turned it down (see Daily News March 18/01 10:45 pm EST).

Now, he has changed his mind, after a sweetened deal that includes a ride in this year's Tour de France. "I love mountain biking, but the Tour is the ultimate, I couldn't turn it down", said Green.

Green will still do some mountain bike races later in the season for Trek-VW, but his last offroad race of the spring will be Napa (April 7-8). After that he will head to Europe to hook up with the Postal team in time for the Paris-Roubaix World Cup on April 15th. "I'm hoping that my mountain biking skills will really help there."

CCA Focuses on Youth

The Canadian Cycling Association has unveiled an ambitious plan to bring more young riders into the sport - BMX and skateboarding. National coach Yuri Kacherine will be switching his efforts from the national training centre in Victoria to the tracks and halfpipes across Canada, in an effort to encourage young riders to take up cycling.

"These young riders, they have the skills we need for the future." said Kacherine at the Sea Otter Classic last weekend. "I am telling you, that is the future of the sport."

Besides attending BMX races across Canada, Kacherine will be holding a series of tryout camps in late May and early June (dates and locations to be confirmed). For more information, contact the CCA at development@canadian-cycling.com.

Harnett Is Back!

Curt Harnett, Canada's 3-time Olympic track medalist and world record holder is going to attempt a comeback.

"I still think that I have it in me to win a few more medals.", said Harnett from Victoria, where he has secretly been training for the past month. "My times are still among the best in the world, and I have really been missing the competition and the lifestyle."

Curt will begin his comeback to competition next month at the Copa Cuba meet in Cuba - April 12-14.

CC Promotes Literacy

Canadian Cyclist will institute a filtering system on the Forums, beginning at 1:00 pm EST April 1st. The filters will reject postings that suffer from spelling mistakes and poor grammer.

"We feel that it is important to improve the overall standard of the Forums", says editor Rob Jones. "Anyone coming into the Forums from outside the bicycle community might get the idea that cyclists are a bunch of illiterate hacks."

The new grammatically correct Forums are the result of months of programming efforts, and should bring discussion to a new level.

(Editor's Note: Of course, the British spelling of words such as honour, harbour, etc. is the only one that the filters will accept)